Using Parsec to parse regular expressions - parsing

Question

I'm trying to learn Parsec by implementing a small regular expression parser. In BNF, my grammar looks something like:
EXP : EXP *
| LIT EXP
| LIT
I've tried to implement this in Haskell as:
expr = try star
<|> try litE
<|> lit
litE = do c <- noneOf "*"
rest <- expr
return (c : rest)
lit = do c <- noneOf "*"
return [c]
star = do content <- expr
char '*'
return (content ++ "*")
There are some infinite loops here though (e.g. expr -> star -> expr without consuming any tokens) which makes the parser loop forever. I'm not really sure how to fix it though, because the very nature of star is that it consumes its mandatory token at the end.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

You should use Parsec.Expr.buildExprParser; it is ideal for this purpose. You simply describe your operators, their precedence and associativity, and how to parse an atom, and the combinator builds the parser for you!
You probably also want to add the ability to group terms with parens so that you can apply * to more than just a single literal.
Here's my attempt (I threw in |, +, and ? for good measure):
import Control.Applicative
import Control.Monad
import Text.ParserCombinators.Parsec
import Text.ParserCombinators.Parsec.Expr
data Term = Literal Char
| Sequence [Term]
| Repeat (Int, Maybe Int) Term
| Choice [Term]
deriving ( Show )
term :: Parser Term
term = buildExpressionParser ops atom where
ops = [ [ Postfix (Repeat (0, Nothing) <$ char '*')
, Postfix (Repeat (1, Nothing) <$ char '+')
, Postfix (Repeat (0, Just 1) <$ char '?')
]
, [ Infix (return sequence) AssocRight
]
, [ Infix (choice <$ char '|') AssocRight
]
]
atom = msum [ Literal <$> lit
, parens term
]
lit = noneOf "*+?|()"
sequence a b = Sequence $ (seqTerms a) ++ (seqTerms b)
choice a b = Choice $ (choiceTerms a) ++ (choiceTerms b)
parens = between (char '(') (char ')')
seqTerms (Sequence ts) = ts
seqTerms t = [t]
choiceTerms (Choice ts) = ts
choiceTerms t = [t]
main = parseTest term "he(llo)*|wor+ld?"

Answer 2

Your grammar is left-recursive, which doesn’t play nice with try, as Parsec will repeatedly backtrack. There are a few ways around this. Probably the simplest is just making the * optional in another rule:
lit :: Parser (Char, Maybe Char)
lit = do
c <- noneOf "*"
s <- optionMaybe $ char '*'
return (c, s)
Of course, you’ll probably end up wrapping things in a data type anyway, and there are a lot of ways to go about it. Here’s one, off the top of my head:
import Control.Applicative ((<$>))
data Term = Literal Char
| Sequence [Term]
| Star Term
expr :: Parser Term
expr = Sequence <$> many term
term :: Parser Term
term = do
c <- lit
s <- optionMaybe $ char '*' -- Easily extended for +, ?, etc.
return $ if isNothing s
then Literal c
else Star $ Literal c
Maybe a more experienced Haskeller will come along with a better solution.